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Topic Review (Newest First)

03-25-2015 07:51 PM

haril

Hotel travel shampoo bottle

Awesomely simple idea to build a drop checker. I am a big DIY fan and I am going to give this a shot. It suddenly occurred to me that the hotels keep these small travel size shampoo and mouthwash bottles which seem to be in the perfect size range so I took home one of those from my official trips.

It also comes with an all-in-one indicator solution for lazy people like me.

03-26-2012 04:02 AM

Chrome

bump for a very useful thread.

I had a brand new airbrush bottle laying around and a few feet of 1 inch OD vinyl tubing. worked great. Just need some solution now.

04-13-2011 03:32 AM

Loop

Quote:

Originally Posted by Traveller

I'm going to be starting on this tomorrow as was wondering if you could use an old plastic medicine bottle.

I don't really know for sure, but I would think it would be fine. I wouldn't think it could be harmful to anything if it's used to hold medicine. Just make sure there's no medicine left in there.

04-13-2011 01:03 AM

NeocaridinaCollector

I'm going to be starting on this tomorrow as was wondering if you could use an old plastic medicine bottle.

04-11-2011 06:29 AM

btimmer92

The Chinese glass one works great for me. It changes about 4X faster than a DIY one I made..small amount of liquid, and volume, and a decent surface area-comparably. The small diameter at the top doesn't have an effect on the equilibrium speed. It's all about surface areas to liquid volume in the checker.

The part I'm not sure about is the diameter of the section that connects the surface area chambers. It would seem to restrict the exchange of gases.

I don't see how the chinese made glass styles for instance would be any good. A big funnel reducing down to a pinhole at the bend before opening back up for the ph solution chamber can't be effective.

I'm not positive about this, but I think that air will exchange gases very easily that it's not a problem. Meaning whatever level of CO2 is in the bottom chamber will quickly equalize with the rest of the trapped air, despite the small opening. Like I said, I'm not positive, but I thought I remember something like that from a science class along time ago.

04-09-2011 06:25 PM

larams67

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loop

What if you made something shaped like this

Not sure what you would make it out of, maybe use something like petri dishes and some acrylic tube (the tube would be curved at the top, not square like in the pic). Keep the tubing as short and thin as possible to limit the volume of air. Imagine a more streamlined shape for a finished product. The white square inside the solution would be something that would take up some of the space to keep the solution volume low, but let you keep a large surface area on top of it. You would view it from the angle the red arrow is pointing so that you still had a decent size viewing area with a white background. The shallow squared off shape instead of a funnel should also give less volume of air inside.

Just an idea that I had trying to think of something that fit the criteria of high surface areas and low volumes.

The part I'm not sure about is the diameter of the section that connects the surface area chambers. It would seem to restrict the exchange of gases.

I don't see how the chinese made glass styles for instance would be any good. A big funnel reducing down to a pinhole at the bend before opening back up for the ph solution chamber can't be effective.

04-09-2011 03:24 PM

Loop

What if you made something shaped like this

Not sure what you would make it out of, maybe use something like petri dishes and some acrylic tube (the tube would be curved at the top, not square like in the pic). Keep the tubing as short and thin as possible to limit the volume of air. Imagine a more streamlined shape for a finished product. The white square inside the solution would be something that would take up some of the space to keep the solution volume low, but let you keep a large surface area on top of it. You would view it from the angle the red arrow is pointing so that you still had a decent size viewing area with a white background. The shallow squared off shape instead of a funnel should also give less volume of air inside.

Just an idea that I had trying to think of something that fit the criteria of high surface areas and low volumes.

04-09-2011 09:46 AM

smannell

OK, after looking at your drawing I understand the reason for the confusion. I was assuming that the aquarium water would rise up far enough that it was past the funnel and into the tubing (it's hard to see from the pictures). Obviously this would depend upon the height of the funnel and how far the drop checker was submerged. You are absolutely correct that using a funnel would increase the surface area and decrease the reaction time provided the interface between the trapped air and the tank water was within the funnel as opposed to farther up into the tubing. I apologize for not making my explanation more clear, and sorry if I caused a lot of confusion. Next time I'll try and figure out how to draw picture and include it in the post (worth a thousand words).

I also thought of how to utilize a fat, and hopefully short jar even if it has a large mouth. Provided the jar has a plastic lid that seals well, you could drill a hole the proper size for the tubing (a spade bit works well for this). With a plastic lid and plastic tubing, super glue makes a quick, convenient sealant. I use it for air tubing all the time and never had a leak. If the jar/bottle is too tall, you could try melting candle wax or paraffin and using it to fill the jar part way to decrease the volume of air it would hold. I don't think it would react with or absorb any CO2 (paraffin is used for home made jams and jellies and doesn't affect the taste).

Sean

04-08-2011 10:28 PM

Loop

Quote:

Originally Posted by psalm18.2

What is the "solution" refering to? Is this for ferts?

The solution is refering to the liquid inside the drop checker.

04-08-2011 10:26 PM

Loop

Quote:

Originally Posted by larams67

The surface area that matters is the area above the ph solution. A funnel shape at the aquarium water side doesn't change that.

I was thinking that both would matter quite a bit. The way I was thinking is that you want CO2 from aquarium water to get to the ph solution. In order for this to happen it needs to get into the trapped air in the drop checker first, and a larger surface area would speed this up. The faster you can get CO2 into that trapped air, the faster CO2 can enter the ph solution, which you would also speed up by having a large surface area.

I do also see having the least amount of solution and air in there being beneficial. Seems like the lower volume of both, the faster it can reach an equal level of CO2 with the tank water.

I don't mean to sound argumentative about it, I'm just trying to understand the reasoning behind the ideas.

04-08-2011 10:19 PM

Hoppy

That's why the funnel shape is beneficial. The size of the air to DC liquid surface area is also important. The bigger, the better, but the lower the volume of liquid in the DC bulb, the better too.

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